Drought makes stretch of river 'ghost town'

Jan. 9, 2013
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Larry Rowe pilots a boat down the Mississippi River on Monday. Barge traffic on a 200-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Cairo, Ill., is about to be shut down because of low water levels. / Whitney Curtis for USA TODAY

by Judy Keen
@judykeen
USA TODAY
, USA TODAY

by Judy Keen
@judykeen
USA TODAY
, USA TODAY

ABOARD THE PATRICK KAPPER - Capt. Larry Rowe has the Mississippi River almost to himself.

On this cold morning, the tugboat he's piloting just south of St. Louis for JB Marine Service encounters only a few other boats, none of them moving commodities through this vital commercial artery. "It's absolutely a ghost town," says Rowe, 51, who has worked on the river for 23 years.

Rick Thompson, 40, a mate on the boat, says that on a normal January day before last year's record drought, he would see up to 10 towboats hauling barges up and down the river. "Now," he says, "you're lucky to see one."

The Army Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard are working to keep the Mississippi's navigation channel, newly shallow and narrow because of the drought, open with dredging, the removal of rock formations and the release of water from reservoirs and lakes upstream.

The commercial shipping industry has warned since November that if low water makes moving cargo too dangerous, a 200-mile stretch of the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo, Ill., would be effectively closed. If that happens, says Debra Colbert of the Waterways Council, which represents shippers and ports, billions of dollars' worth of goods and thousands of jobs would be affected, rattling the entire U.S. economy.

The river still can accommodate the 9-foot drafts - the depth of boats below the water's surface - needed for most towboats and barges. Whether the stretch will remain open depends on the Army Corps of Engineers' management of water flow and the whims of the weather.

The corps "is confident they can maintain the channel deeper than 9 feet up until late January," says Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Colin Fogarty. "Without a crystal ball, it's really too hard to look beyond a two- to three-week period."

Shippers say the threat of closure is hurting business.

George Foster, president of JB Marine Service, which services the barge industry, says business is off 45% to 50% over the past three months. His once-floating office, built atop a former barge, sits on dry land. Receding water made the whole structure tilt at a sharp angle that has caused walls to break apart. The staff moved out last week.

The situation "is terrible," Foster says. "I've never seen it like this."

Rick Calhoun, president of Cargo Carriers, the barge business for agricultural and food giant Cargill, says his company has moved some equipment south of here, so it wouldn't be inaccessible if the river closes to commercial traffic. The company has shipped some grain to New Orleans by train, which is more expensive, because of the risks of using the Mississippi. It takes 216 rail cars or 1,050 large tractor-trailers to carry the same load as 15 barges.

It can take 14 days for barges loaded in New Orleans to make it to this part of the Mississippi, Calhoun says, and 21 days for shipments from Corpus Christi or Brownsville, Texas, to get here. If they arrive to find the river impassable, he says, it can cost thousands of dollars daily to "park" barges along the river bank.

Tensions between shippers and the federal government began in November, when the Corps of Engineers began its annual reduction in the amount of water released from a reservoir into the Missouri River, which joins the Mississippi near here. The decrease is meant to ensure adequate reservoir levels and to prevent ice buildup and flooding. The industry asked the Obama administration to reverse the plan; it has not done so.

To address shippers' concerns, the corps accelerated the removal of rock formations that obstruct the navigation channel and released some water from upstream. The rock project is temporarily affecting river traffic: Boats are allowed through only eight hours a day.

Fogarty says the site of that project, near Thebes, Ill., is the only spot on the river where navigation is restricted. Since Dec. 17, he says, more than 300 boats and 2,800 barges have passed through that area. "All things being considered, this is a huge success story," he says.

The shipping industry wants a promise from the Obama administration.

"What we really need is to have the administration guarantee in some way that the water will be available - that a 9-foot shipping channel will be available to shippers ... and that releases from Missouri reservoirs or other sources will be available to us," Colbert says.

Greg Guenther, 58, who grows corn and soybeans near Belleville, Ill., says the stakes are high for his business and the nation's. "The biggest market I have for corn is outside the USA, so transportation is critical," he says, to get his crops to New Orleans for export.